6/19/23, 10:50 AM Is TMS a Polysemic Acronym? What should TMS mean to you in your role?

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Is TMS a Polysemic
Acronym? What should
TMS mean to you in
your role?
Sujit Varma
6 articles
Supply Chain Evangelist | Business Coach | Product Architect

May 13, 2021

As a logistician who spends his time with a lot of people

who manage the movement of goods (Well, whether to call
it Shipment, Consignment, Cargo or Freight is a battle for
another day), I have oft heard them say that they manage
this movement on a TMS - What they decipher as Transport
Management System. There are many interpretations of
what a TMS is, and hence I believe that TMS is either a
misnomer or a Polysemic Acronym.

For a Logistics Service User (LSU), a TMS

implementation is a large project which has to work
across silos and spend a lot of money, time effort to
implement. When implemented, it gives them the
Transport Control Tower and the utility is either from

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the ERP vendor or integrated with the ERP. Most often,

transaction (Consignment) tracking is the operational
intervention and mostly ends with pushing data to
Freight Audit companies for Freight Invoicing audit.
Freight Tendering, Vendor Discovery, Price Discovery
are not part of this TMS (most often) as the vendor
nominations are through annual contracting.

For a Logistics Service Provider (LSP) who provides

"Land Transportation" (Often referred to as
Transporter), a TMS is something like his ERP. He can
recognise Revenue (LR or Docket as you want to call
by sophistication) and capture Cost (Manifest, Trip
Sheet, Truck hire Challan, Run Sheets etc). Mostly, the
TMS available in the market comes with an integrated
accounting package that helps the transporter close his
yearly accounts and also help him filing returns. The
transporter version of the TMS helps him to manage
Hub and Spoke Transportation of Express or Parcel and
Point to Point FTL transportation. There are many good
and established TMS vendors in India.

For a Logistics Service Provider (LSP) who provides

Transportation services through the modes of Air and
Sea (Often referred to as Freight Forwarder) the TMS
which helps him to manage his business is called a
Freight Management System (FMS). It helps him to
recognise Revenue (Create House, Tag a Master etc...)
and capture Cost (Book Air/Ocean Freight, Capture
Origin/Destination Cost from Agents & Own Offices).
First Mile (Supplier to Port) and Last Mile (Port to
Buyer) land transportation is captured as
reimbursement to the transporter in the FMS. There
are established global and Indian products in TMS for
Freight Forwarders (FMS).

For a Logistics Service Provider (LSP) who provides

Warehousing based Distribution Services - often
referred to as a 3PL (why only this entity is 3PL and
others are not is lost in translation in the industry), the
TMS is just an add-on utility to his business. Mostly,
these entities practise "Reimbursement Transportation"
on behalf of their principals. They provide FTL & PTL
services as an outsourced activity with operations of
both modes being the responsibility of the outsourced
Transporters. Peer pressure in the industry also leads
them to buy a market TMS solution. Then they have
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rebellion in the Data Entry ranks in the warehouse. Lots

of workarounds, Some of the core transport processes
to be bypassed and eventually the TMS vendor and the
3PL pitch trenches and get on to a long drawn battle -
but cannot live without each other. Some 3PLs
eventually read the Square Peg in a Round Hole
testament - mostly to make the mistake of developing
"Mini TMS" which is a feast for the friendly-
neighbourhood-Sofware-company.

Established TMS (all flavours) players are also adapting by

creating feature controlled versions and ensuring that there
is no pushback from the Data Entry brigade which controls
the Make or Break of the TMS implementation in
enterprises. All these solutions are again Silos. Then there
are other TMS operators like the Vendor and Price
Discovery Platforms (Freight Exchanges, Bidding Platforms),
TMS Tracking Services (GPS, GSM tracking, Routes, ePOD
etc).

Imagine if a large manufacturing and distribution enterprise

in India wants a 50,000 feet view of their Transportation (All
Modes) execution with the power to drill down to the single
transaction at ground zero? Any guess how many TMS
solutions and networks will be involved in getting data with
no latency? Let us look forward to the intelligent minds in
the industry to create solutions that will seamlessly
integrate, operate, track and provide all this on Cognitive
Dashboards for decision support for all modes and models.

Published by
Sujit Varma 6 articles
Supply Chain Evangelist | Business Coach | Product Architect
Published • 2y

The first step in process automation in Transportation is to buy and implement a TMS
- whether you are a Logistics Service Provider (LSP) or a Logistics Service User (LSU).
Is TMS a general acronym or does it mean different things to different people? What
type of TMS should you buy and implement for your business - A quick and loud
shout! #TMS #transportationmanagement # #logistics # #transportation # #freight
# #trucking #fleet #automation #shipping #warehouse #distribution

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Ranu Singh and 7 others

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Add a comment…

Apurva Mankad • 1st 2y

Founder of WebXpress SaaS | Green Supply Chain enthusiast | Building ESG
Solutions

Sujith- very well articulated. Clearly shows what will a TMS do for each
segment. As a TMS solution provider, I completely agree with you on
"latency" and "silo" part. Good news is that integration has become
increasingly easy between silos. For example, our solution WebXpress is
integrated with GPS systems, SIM card tracking, Fuel companies, …see
Fasttag,
moreE-

Like · 1 Reply · 1 Reply

Sujit Varma • You 2y

Supply Chain Evangelist | Business Coach | Product Architect

Excellent initiative. All the best!

Like Reply

Sujit Varma
Supply Chain Evangelist | Business Coach | Product Architect

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